ABC’s hit TV series Lost has captured the imagination of its viewing audience since its phenomenal pilot episode. There are at least 8 different official and fan-created websites (one of which we reported on before the summer) to explore for more clues and fan-fiction about the Lost universe.

Warning: this article may contain spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of ABC’s Lost.

Centered around the survivors of a plane crash, the show takes place on a mysterious jungle island somewhere in the Pacific inhabited by wild boars, polar bears, a French woman who has been stranded there for 16 years, a castaway athlete who’s been isolated in a bunker for the last few years, and a group of antagonists known only as “The Others”. The numbers – 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 – show up everywhere from coordinates to lottery numbers to the hatch buried in the ground to retired Yankee jersey numbers. Fertile ground for speculation to run wild.

Appropriately, many websites have sprung up around the show; some are official, some are not.

Oceanic-air.com, the website for the ill-fated Oceanic Airlines (believed official). Their flight 815 is the one that went off-course and crashed on the island. Check out the seating chart for back-story and more information on the main characters.OceanicFlight815.com, with information about the characters and story (believed official). Clicking on the barcode and entering ‘theislandiswaiting’ nets you a script page from an upcoming episode. Clicking on the blue light in the background picture takes you to:TheHansoFoundation.org, relating to the mysterious organization who seems to have used the Island to run several social, psychological, and scientific experiments (believed official). Entering “https” in front of the URL leads you to:BigSpaceship1.com, an enigmatic site with changing flash animations ranging from rodent revolutions to red polar bears to songs about satellites (official status uncertain). Also hosted on the same machine are:Smartdust.com, which has no content, but Googling for the term “smartdust” brings up many interesting documents on nanotechnology – could this be the black-cloud Island security system? (Official status uncertain.)TheDharmaInitiative.org, a mysterious website with the ubiquitous Dharma logo, containing the Station 3 orientation video and an intriguing login form (official status uncertain).DriveshaftBand.com, a website dedicated to Charlie’s band Driveshaft (fan-created site).